


Better

by ticktockclockwork



Series: Vocabulary [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dialogue-Only, Fights, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-17
Updated: 2017-08-17
Packaged: 2018-12-16 11:05:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11827437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ticktockclockwork/pseuds/ticktockclockwork
Summary: First fights can be brutal, but they don't have to be the end.





	Better

**Author's Note:**

> This piece is part of a much larger Bittyparse project I'm working on. I don't know if I'll ever get around to finishing it so I'm posting this now, since I'm proud of it.

**better,** _adj._ and _adv._

 

Will it ever get better?  
It better.  
Will it ever get better?  
It better.  
Will it ever get better?  
It better.

* * *

  _It's our first fight._

_I don't know what to think about that except that I'm fucking floored it took us this god damn long to have it. Three months, can you believe it? Three months of something amazing that clearly wasn't going to last. And of course we had to have it in public. It's a shame you're so hot when you're mad because I absolutely hate myself for making you this way. I'm not sorry for everything I said but I'm sorry for a lot of it._

_I'm sorry I yelled._

_And I'm sorry I called you what I did._

_I meant it, but I didn't… I didn't MEAN it, yanno? I just._

_I don't know how to do this, Bits. You said it best. I only know how to break things. Maybe I'm just trying to break you too, before you break me._

_Because, darling, if anything's going to get destroyed, it's definitely going to be you._

_\---_

_You yelled at me._

_Right out there in the open._

_We weren't even doing anything, just at the store and I was lookin’ at edible glitter? And I asked you something. I don't even know. It was stupid. So stupid._

_Something about being gay enough if I put glitter on our burgers. Or lobster. You wanted lobster. I wanted glitter. I thought I was funny._

_You didn't._

_I thought at first that someone was hurting you but then you were saying it at me, yelling at me, about wasting time? And who the fuck cares about the flavor differences between pink and green glitter? Didn't we have better things to do than look at, and I quote, gay shit like baking supplies._

_You surprised even yourself with that one._

_\---_

_God, why did I say that?! What the fuck is wrong with me?! Who… who says something like that to their god damn boyfriend? What kind of piece of trash am I?_

\---

_I started to cry._

\---

_You started to cry._

\---

_Then I left._

_I hate crying in public. I really don't like crying at all even though I'm prone to it, but I especially hate it in public. I set our basket down and I stepped away from you and walked away._

_Just so you know, the bathrooms in Michael's are really gross._

\---

_It wasn't as hard to find you as I thought it'd be. You'd yelled at some old crone to leave you alone when she banged on the door and said something about behavior in public. Your mom wouldn't have been proud of you for what you said back to her but I sure was. I'm always proud of you._

_I'm sorry I made it seem like I wasn't today. That I was… that I was ashamed of you. Of us, of our sexuality. I'm not, I'm so so not. Like, really, I was basically out before I met you it's just…_

_I'm just._

_\---_

_You're scared. I know._

_Believe me, I know what it feels like being scared of being openly gay. Everyone tells you it gets better, it gets better but yanno? Sometimes it still really sucks. And baby, I know it's extra hard for you, I know they say awful things to you on the ice, probably the same awful things they say to me online._

_I get it._

_But you can't take it out on me._

_\---_

_I gotta stop taking it out on you. Fuck. Fucking fucking fuck. I can't do that. I can't. I know that. I saw some person taking a picture of us and I saw someone make a face and I didn't mean to… I don't know why…_

_It just got under my skin._

_\---_

_You think I'm not bothered by it all too? Lord, I love you more 'an a fox loves a hen but sometimes I get upset by it all too. Sometimes I wish I could just walk down the street without worrying what Nancy next door is saying about us now. As if she has any room to judge with her six failed marriages and three kids who hate everything about her except her money._

_Sometimes I want to wear a color just because I like that color and not because it's a ‘gay’ color. Like so fucking what? I am gay, yeah, but I ain't wearing this BECAUSE I'm gay. I just like baby blue, Nancy! Okay?! I just like blue!_

_Fuck._

_FUCK FUCK FUCK._

_You think this is only hard on you?!_

_\---_

_I'm such a fucking terrible boyfriend._

_\---_

_Sometimes you're a really terrible boyfriend._

_\---_

_How can you still love me?_

_\---_

_Because sometimes you're a terrible boyfriend. But you're not a terrible person. And while it's still just scared-Kent yelling, then I'll stick around. Because I don't want you to be scared. I don't want to be scared and I don't want you to be scared and if I can help one of us I'm pretty sure I can help both of us and I might as well start with you. I love you most, so._

\---

_You came out of the bathroom and we left the store and I drove us home and neither of us said a word. I thought you were going to leave right then. I almost drove around the block just to keep you with me longer, I was so scared. I wouldn't have blamed you, really. It was inexcusable, what I said. But I'm a selfish asshole at the best of times and I didn't want to see you go._

_But you didn't leave. I pulled into the garage and you grabbed the bags and you went to the elevator and we went upstairs just like we would have any other day. You didn't say a word, not until you'd set the bags down in the kitchen._

_It was your turn to yell. It's amazing, how you're so good at yelling without raising your voice. You said that that's the south in you, the ability to tear someone down with a smile. I need to learn how to do that instead of just making a scene._

_Right now, I just take it. I deserve so much worse._

\---

_I make sure you know that I won't ever have you do that to me again. I look you in the eye and I say to you, Kent Parson, if you ever make me feel so small and wrong in public again I will whoop your hide then leave your sorry ass. I say that I am gay, and that I like glitter, and that those things do not have to be related and then I grab a glass that you left on the counter and I smash it on the ground._

_I'm shaking._

_I say I'm proud of the person I am and that you better be too._

_\---_

_I flinch._

_I guess I wasn't expecting you to break something but I can tell you were either going to smash the glass or smash my teeth and sometimes I make money off the teeth. I'm looking at you and I'm looking at your anger and your hurt and I'm realizing that maybe I'm not the first person to make you feel bad about being gay but that you're damn well ready to make me the last._

_I don't know why this comes as such a shock for me. You've told me all about your childhood growing up, how terrible middle school was, how high school was only better because your family had moved. You told me about the abuse and the bullying, you told me how your parents are supportive but in a weird way, in a 'you're my son so I'm going to love you but I also think you're going to hell so I pray for you at night’ kind of way. You told me how after you came out, people looked at you different at Christmas service and now you don't go home for the holidays._

_I know you know what it feels like to have people think you're wrong for being gay._

_I never should have been a person on that list._

_I tell you as much._

_\---_

_You're sorry and I know it's genuine and while I'm still angry I'm not as angry about that. I mean, the burn of how I felt will last a while, but I can tell something that you can't. It's amazing what growing up fearfully closeted can do to a person. It's amazing how sometimes I still feel wrong, when I think about the boy everyone back home thinks about, a different Eric Bittle who had a different life and made different choices and I think that the other Eric, the maybe Eric, is probably a better version of me. I know what it feels like to wish you were something else._

_To be exhausted._

_I know the exact weight of pride, Kent Parson. I know how it strains the neck and tightens the shoulders. I know how it weakens the legs and makes your heart race. I know that it can lift you up just as quickly as drag you down and I know how much of a burden it can be sometimes, to always be proud, to never be tired._

_Sometimes, being gay, makes me tired._

_It's a constant battle between maybe Eric and real Eric._

_Sometimes I wish I could lose so I could just go home for Christmas and see my cousins._

_I know you're scared being in the public eye now for something honest like love. I know you're tired of your scandals not being scandals and instead being me. I know you're exhausted from the slurs and the checks and the threats and the looks and the pictures and the comments and the fans and the hate. I know you're tired of being the poster boy of the NHL now._

_I know you regret it sometimes, coming out._

_I tell you as much._

\---

_I start to cry._

\---

_You start to cry._

\---

_I smash the glass you'd left on the counter next to mine. I smash it against the pieces already on the floor. You whisper._

_\---_

_Mazel tov._

_\---_

_I want to laugh because the delivery is fucking perfect but when I go to do so I just crumble instead. You catch me before I fall into the glass and you move me to the couch even though I'm unwieldy, unhelpful. I tip sideways and my head is in your lap even though you're still trying to get settled and I can't help but wrap my arms around whatever part of you I can._

_I hold on._

_And apologize._

_Over and over and over I say all the sorrys no one else ever has. I apologize for your mother and your father, for Nancy, for Jack. I tell you you're beautiful and wonderful and I find a million new ways to lay out just how in love I am with you. Your eyes, your hands, your freckles, your fears. All of it, Eric Bittle, I love all of it._

_And I'm not ashamed of it._

_I'm not ashamed of you._

_You quiet and tuck my hair behind my ear. You lean down to kiss my skin. You say 'I know.’_

_\---_

_Because the person you're ashamed of is you._

_\---_

_Does it get better, I ask, after we've cleaned up the glass and put away the things we bought. After we've turned out the lights and shed our clothes and crawled into bed to face each other. After your eyes grow tired and mine grow wet, I ask because I have to._

_Does it get better?_

_\---_

_It better._

_\---_

_You wrinkle your nose up like you do when you get defiant, like if it doesn't get better, you'll tell it what for. It's a new thing to add to my list, the list of things I love. Because fucking hell, no one has ever been willing to fight the world for me. No one has ever been willing to fight the world for us._

_But here you are._

_Looking up and up and up with your slingshot and your rocks and when the giant asks if it gets better you notch your shot and take aim._

_\---_

_It better._

_\---_

_Or you'll make it so._

**Author's Note:**

> So a while back I read The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan and after crying a whole bunch I was inspired to write a Bittyparse anthology following the same setup as the book. I wrote quite a bit of it but not all of it and I've always been disappointed because this piece was one of my favorites from what I wrote. 
> 
> So I decided to post it anyways and if I get around to finishing the whole thing then I'll put this in the collection properly. For now, I hope you enjoy it as a standalone.
> 
> Come find me on Tumblr at [ticktockclockwork](https://www.ticktockclockwork.tumblr.com)


End file.
